Who Killed J.D. Tippit?

[Mitch Todd]

police never give names of potential suspects on the radio

This is from the Shearer transcript of the channel one recording:

DIS: 72.
72:   Go ahead.
DIS: No wanted on a 1950 Chevrolet two-door, 1104 Vista Drive, Mesquite.
72:   Check three persons for me: James Pride, colored male, 21; Charles Pride, colored male, 23; then a Carroll B. Pride (P-R-I-D-E), a colored male, 29.
DIS: Not registered to any of those.
72:   Not


Which of those three was a murder suspect / witness or a suspect / witness in any other crime?

They certainly seem to be involved in something. There is a car that has attracted police attention for some reason, and the officer at the scene suspects that they might be involved with it, which is why he calls in their names for further information. Why wouldn't Westbrook do the same if he found identification in the mystery wallet?

And where is it written that the police will never broadcast the name of a suspect? The cops will even have the TV news broadcast names and photos of suspects to the public for certain crimes.

He could just as easily have been a bystander who simply lost his wallet.

Then wouldn't the obvious course of action be to ask the witnesses and gawkers assembled at the scene if they lost a wallet? Ask if anyone was or knew a Lee Oswald? Ask if anyone was or knew A. Hidell?

Sure, that's exactly what FBI agent Bob Barrett said happened. Westbrook asked him if he knew Oswald or Hidell!

But that's not really what I asked. I asked about the "witnesses and gawkers" (note the plural). Barrett belonged to neither of these groups, and was only one person. So you want to try again, and not dodge this time?

He possibly asked other people as well, but that's not recorded anywhere, so we'll never know for sure.

And, out of all of those he would have asked, not one would have remembered or said anything about a police captain walking around the crime scene asking about Oswald/Hidell? That would be a hell of a thing for so many people to forget.   

I would argue that it is possible Westbrook did not call in the finding of the wallet exactly because he wasn't sure if it belonged to Tippit's killer or not. What he did call in was the white jacket that an unidentified cop found under a car, because he did have reason to assume it did belong to the killer.

If it was found unclaimed at the crime scene, did not belong to the victim, and contained ID, I would figure that the first thing the officers on scene would do would be to call in to HQ for a records check on any identity found in the wallet. If nothing else, it would allow the DPD to quickly rule out the owner as a suspect. And it would quickly spread word of a valuable lead to a lot people who could use it most at a critical time.

One thing is for sure. Westbrook is essential in two pieces of crucial evidence and both pieces of evidence (the wallet and the jacket) are obviously tainted.

The Robert Harris Rule: when someone's arguments are centered on the word "obvious" it's generally because there are no other arguments to center around

[Mitch Todd]

Barrett is the only source

That's one more than the LNs have to support all their desperate speculation about it not being an Oswald wallet.

And Jack Tatum is one more source that Oswald delivered a coup-de-grace shot than the CTs have that Oswald didn't. So, by your own logick, you should automatically believe Tatum just as you choose to believe Barrett

And Barrett didn't start saying this until decades later.

So what's your point? I you have one, that is....

In his autobiography, John Connally wrote that most of his memories of November 22, 1963 really weren't his own memories, but things he'd gleaned from others or from what he'd seen or read   in the years after the event. Over time, Connally's memories melded with these other sources into their own composite narrative. That's why he wrote about secret service agents immediately jumping out of the Queen Mary and heading straight for the TSBD.

Audrey Bell told the ARRB (and others) about her efforts in TR1 that day. After the assassination, JC Price had every Parkland staffer, medical or not, who was involved in the treatment of either Kennedy or Connally write a report about their activities that day. But there is no report from Audrey Bell in the resulting collection. The WC staff asked the various doctors and nurses who worked in TR1 that day to list the other staffers they remembered working with them. Bell's name is never mentioned. Almost all of the physicians in that room were surgeons, surgical residents, or interns on their surgery rotation. Bell, who was one of the supervisor nurses running the OR suite was one of the few nurses that these guys would have been able to identify at first sight.

Over the years, Dr Robert Grossman made some fairly grandiose claims about his presence in TR1. However, the record simply doesn't support it. Of the other doctors known to have been in the room, only Kenneth Salyer remembered him. Even then, Salyer wasn't sure if Grossman even entered the room, and was sure that if Grossman did, then only did so "for a very brief time."

When Paul O'Connor first appears in the record, he said that after the body was removed from the casket, he was herded out of the Bethesda morgue and remained outside for the bulk of the procedure. Over time, he sort of wormed his way back into the room after enough retellings of the story.

And, there's the sad case of the Bethesda x-ray tech Jerrol Custer. Read Walt Brown's review of _In the Eye of History_ if you want the details of the various, mutually contradictory stories that Custer began to spout in the 90's.

There are people who have inserted themselves into the assassination story, but were never there. Gordon Arnold and Beverly Olivier come to mind.

Others who actually were part of the drama still managed their own self-aggrandizing additions to the story. I've already mentioned some of those. In his WDC testimony James Humes declares himself a forensic pathologist, but had neither the training nor experience to do so.

The upshot is, there are a lot of almost-too-good-to-be-true stories that have popped up out of nowhere over the years. A very large proportion of these have turned out to be dubious, if not outright BS. Any story like Barrett's needs to be treated carefully and with due suspicion until it can either be independently supported or shown to be trash.

[Mitch Todd]

First of all, I started the sentence with the word "If". Did you miss that?

Didn't miss it at all. Also didn't miss that it's just a conjecture on your part. Barrett never claimed to have actually seen the contents of the wallet as far as I know. Further, if there are two Oswald wallets with different IDs, can you really just assume that they are copies of each other?

Secondly, let me put it like this; The fake Hidell ID has Oswald's photo on it. That's a fact. Bentley, who took the wallet from Oswald in the car, after his arrest, said nothing about an Hidell ID. No DPD report filed by any of the officers in the car with Oswald mentions the name Hidell, despite the fact that it is crucial evidence as it would link Oswald to the name on the order forms for the rifle and revolver. All this, and the interview Bentley gave on TV about the content of the wallet, justifies the conclusion that the Hidell ID was not in the wallet that Bentley took from Oswald.

Gus Rose was given a wallet, by an unidentified officer, who told him it was Oswald's, just like what happened with the jacket (Go figure!). And low and behold in that wallet there was this fake Hidell ID with Oswald's photo. IIRC Bentley was injured during the arrest and was taken to hospital as soon as the car arrived at City Hall. When he came back from hospital he still had the wallet he took from Oswald on his person.

So, how did this unidentified officer manage to give a wallet with an Hidell ID to Gus Rose, who was the first to talk to Oswald after his arrival at the DPD HQ?

The only logical explanation, IMO, for that ID being in the wallet is that Rose was given the wallet which Barrett said Westbrook was looking at when he asked him about knowing Oswald or Hidell.

Or can you come up with another explanation?

To begin with, You are wrong about Bentley. He returned to DPD HQ, and was with Hill and Carroll first in the Homicide office, then with Hill and Carroll in the personnel division office writing reports. After that, he gave the wallet to  TL Baker, who worked with Rose under Fritz. Only after handing off the wallet did Bentley go to the hospital. This pretty much kills the scenario you are trying to insinuate.

So, Baker might well be your "unidentified officer". 

[Martin Weidmann]

They certainly seem to be involved in something. There is a car that has attracted police attention for some reason, and the officer at the scene suspects that they might be involved with it, which is why he calls in their names for further information. Why wouldn't Westbrook do the same if he found identification in the mystery wallet?

"Certainly seem to be involved"? Based on what? A cop, probably abusing his authority, stopping three black men in a car. Of course they must be up to something, right? How pathetic.

BS like that happened in the 60's and is still happening now on a daily basis.

There is a car that has attracted police attention for some reason

That's called a traffic stop

and the officer at the scene suspects that they might be involved with it

Involved with what? What would be the reasonable suspicion?

Why wouldn't Westbrook do the same if he found identification in the mystery wallet?

Duh... Because he found it at a murder scene and could be linking an innocent white man to a serious crime.

Bottom line is that you are trying to compare apples and oranges and it's lame.

And where is it written that the police will never broadcast the name of a suspect? The cops will even have the TV news broadcast names and photos of suspects to the public for certain crimes.

For what "certain crimes"?

And sure, they will use the TV news in a search for serious offenders, but only after there is no more reasonable doubt that the suspect is actually involved in the crime. That's not the case here. Westbrook could not make the determination at the scene that the wallet for certain belonged to Tippit's killer.

But that's not really what I asked. I asked about the "witnesses and gawkers" (note the plural). Barrett belonged to neither of these groups, and was only one person. So you want to try again, and not dodge this time?

An FBI agent present at the scene of a crime somehow isn't a witness? Are you for real? I don't know who else Westbrook asked, but I do know that Bob Barrett said he did ask him. I could argue that off duty officer Croy, who was the first to arrive at the scene, confirmed the presence of the wallet, but I don't want to do that simply because the only way Croy apparently confirmed it was in a text written on a photograph which now, for unclear reasons, can not be produced. So, we're stuck with Barrett said and you, rather dishonestly, as per usuals, are asking about more than one person because you know full well that we don't know who else (if anybody) was asked. All you want to do is argue that just because an FBI agent is the only one who came forward with the information it is somehow not valid because he's the only one. It's utterly pathetic and exactly what is to be expected from a LN.

And, out of all of those he would have asked, not one would have remembered or said anything about a police captain walking around the crime scene asking about Oswald/Hidell? That would be a hell of a thing for so many people to forget.

So many people? How many people were there? And who said that no one would have remembered? You seem to think that anybody who is present at a crime scene would automatically want to get involved by coming forward. Talk to some murder investigators for once and you'll find out quickly that's not the way it works in the real world.

 
If it was found unclaimed at the crime scene, did not belong to the victim, and contained ID, I would figure that the first thing the officers on scene would do would be to call in to HQ for a records check on any identity found in the wallet. If nothing else, it would allow the DPD to quickly rule out the owner as a suspect. And it would quickly spread word of a valuable lead to a lot people who could use it most at a critical time.

You can "figure" all you want. Get back to me when you have something more solid than just your imagination. What you think the authorities should have done doesn't matter one iota.

it would allow the DPD to quickly rule out the owner as a suspect.

How exactly do you rule out somebody as a suspect for a murder by doing a name/ID check?

The Robert Harris Rule: when someone's arguments are centered on the word "obvious" it's generally because there are no other arguments to center around

You seem well aware of that "rule", judging by your "arguments".

But I'll gladly tell you why both pieces of evidence (the wallet and the jacket) are tainted. There is no chain of custody for either. Both were apparently handled by officers that remained unidentified. Both pieces of evidence dissappeared out of sight for a while and then suddenly showed up at the police station. And for both items there is a problem with the description of it. A jacket first described several times as being white suddenly turned grey at the police station and it is marked by police officers who could not and did not hold it simply because they were not at the location where it was found. The wallet was initially described as containing a drivers' license and a credit card suddenly showed up at the police station without those two items in it but instead with a fake Hidell in it.

As an LN apologist for the incompetent DPD you will no doubt refuse to accept that any of this is a problem because you have to to keep a flawed weak narrative alive.

[Martin Weidmann]

And Jack Tatum is one more source that Oswald delivered a coup-de-grace shot than the CTs have that Oswald didn't. So, by your own logick, you should automatically believe Tatum just as you choose to believe Barrett

Jack Tatum said nothing about a wallet and thus is hardly relevant to the discussion. But I have no problem with Tatum believing or even claiming that he saw Oswald on 11/22/63. You just argued that if anybody else was asked by Westbrook about knowing Oswald and Hidell would have remembered and come forward. Now you are arguing that a guy who claimed, many years later, to have been a witness is to be believed. You seem to want to have your cake and eat it too.

Any way, eye-witness testimony is the weakest evidence there is. There are more witnesses who actually picked Oswald out of a (questionable) line up, but if Oswald physically couldn't have been at the scene when Tippit was shot, those "identifications" are pretty meaningless.

In his autobiography, John Connally wrote that most of his memories of November 22, 1963 really weren't his own memories, but things he'd gleaned from others or from what he'd seen or read   in the years after the event. Over time, Connally's memories melded with these other sources into their own composite narrative. That's why he wrote about secret service agents immediately jumping out of the Queen Mary and heading straight for the TSBD.

Audrey Bell told the ARRB (and others) about her efforts in TR1 that day. After the assassination, JC Price had every Parkland staffer, medical or not, who was involved in the treatment of either Kennedy or Connally write a report about their activities that day. But there is no report from Audrey Bell in the resulting collection. The WC staff asked the various doctors and nurses who worked in TR1 that day to list the other staffers they remembered working with them. Bell's name is never mentioned. Almost all of the physicians in that room were surgeons, surgical residents, or interns on their surgery rotation. Bell, who was one of the supervisor nurses running the OR suite was one of the few nurses that these guys would have been able to identify at first sight.

Over the years, Dr Robert Grossman made some fairly grandiose claims about his presence in TR1. However, the record simply doesn't support it. Of the other doctors known to have been in the room, only Kenneth Salyer remembered him. Even then, Salyer wasn't sure if Grossman even entered the room, and was sure that if Grossman did, then only did so "for a very brief time."

When Paul O'Connor first appears in the record, he said that after the body was removed from the casket, he was herded out of the Bethesda morgue and remained outside for the bulk of the procedure. Over time, he sort of wormed his way back into the room after enough retellings of the story.

And, there's the sad case of the Bethesda x-ray tech Jerrol Custer. Read Walt Brown's review of _In the Eye of History_ if you want the details of the various, mutually contradictory stories that Custer began to spout in the 90's.

There are people who have inserted themselves into the assassination story, but were never there. Gordon Arnold and Beverly Olivier come to mind.

Others who actually were part of the drama still managed their own self-aggrandizing additions to the story. I've already mentioned some of those. In his WDC testimony James Humes declares himself a forensic pathologist, but had neither the training nor experience to do so.

The upshot is, there are a lot of almost-too-good-to-be-true stories that have popped up out of nowhere over the years. A very large proportion of these have turned out to be dubious, if not outright BS. Any story like Barrett's needs to be treated carefully and with due suspicion until it can either be independently supported or shown to be trash.

And there it is..... the classic LN claim that Bob Barrett probably misremembered, based on nothing more than wishful thinking. The problem is that you've got no reason to assume that Barrett misremembered. You are not treating Barrett's story carefully and with due suspicion. You are dismissing it outright simply because it doesn't fit the narrative you prefer.

On the other hand, you are presenting Tatum as a credible witness for whom doesn't apply what you claim applies to Connally, Audrey Bell, Paul O'Connor etc. 

If you believe Tatum (as you seem to do) then why don't you believe Barrett? And, btw, let's not forget that Barrett told Hosty, in a private conversation, about the wallet long before it became public information. It was never intended for publication.

[Martin Weidmann]

Didn't miss it at all. Also didn't miss that it's just a conjecture on your part. Barrett never claimed to have actually seen the contents of the wallet as far as I know. Further, if there are two Oswald wallets with different IDs, can you really just assume that they are copies of each other?

And I didn't claim that Barrett actually saw the contents of the wallet. All I said is that Bob Barrett said that Westbrook was looking at the wallet when he asked him about the two names.

Further, if there are two Oswald wallets with different IDs, can you really just assume that they are copies of each other?

What is this gibberish? Who said anything about wallets being copies of each other?

Bentley said on TV that he found an ID for Oswald, a drivers' license and a credit card.
Westbrook asked Barrett about Oswald and Hidell.

How can these wallets be copies of each other?

To begin with, You are wrong about Bentley. He returned to DPD HQ, and was with Hill and Carroll first in the Homicide office, then with Hill and Carroll in the personnel division office writing reports. After that, he gave the wallet to  TL Baker, who worked with Rose under Fritz. Only after handing off the wallet did Bentley go to the hospital. This pretty much kills the scenario you are trying to insinuate.

So, Baker might well be your "unidentified officer".

That's simply not true, at least not all of it. But, I'm curious, where can I find Bentley's report in which he makes those statements?

If the wallet Bentley took from Oswald contained a Hidell ID, then why isn't that mentioned in any report. And if Baker (who you say worked with Rose) was the one Bentley gave the wallet to, why did Gus Rose not simply identify him as the man who gave him the wallet? And why wouldn't T.L. Baker mention something like that in his extremely brief WC testimony?

It seems you haven't got anything of substance as is clearly demonstrated by your speculation that "Baker might well be the "unidentified officer"".

Actually, your own arguments make it impossible for Baker to be that unidentified officer. We know from Gus Rose that he started talking to Oswald directly after he was brought in to the station. At that time Rose was given a wallet. If Bentley, after delivering Oswald, first went to the Homicide office and then wrote a report in the personnel division office, before giving the wallet from the car to Baker, then that wallet could not have been the one that Rose was given immediately after Oswald was brought in.

[Tom Scully]

OK genius.... IF the man was using a S&W,   WHY would he swing the cylinder out of the frame and the push the extractor rod and only remove a single cartridge??     Incidentally, ... The witness said that the fleeing gunman  was holding the gun in his hand with the barrel pointing up and shaking it to facilitate the removal of the spent shells as he removed ONE SHELL AT A TIME.

"The witness" let it slip that Tippit resided on East Tenth... A DNA test of Tippit's alleged love child would confirm motive of her
mother's husband to shoot Tippit...
https://www.jdtippit.com/v-davis_nov.htm

"Mrs. DAVIS. No, sir; we just saw a police car sitting on the side of the road.
    Mr. BELIN. Where was the police car parked?
    Mrs. DAVIS. It was parked between the hedge that marks the apartment house where he lives in and the house next door.
    Mr. BELIN. Was it on your side of East 10th or the other side of the street?
    Mrs. DAVIS. It was on our side, the same side that we lived on.
    Mr. BELIN. Was it headed as you looked to the police car, towards your right or towards your left?
    Mrs. DAVIS. Right.
    Mr. BELIN. Did you see any police officer in a police car when you first saw him?
    Mrs. DAVIS. No, sir..."

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/W%20Disk/Witherspoon%20Johnnie%20Maxie/Item%2001.pdf

"...General Johnnie Maxie - Stephen Thompson, Jr. material including marriage license, divorce decrees,
employment and children.
HSCA synopsis of interviews with:
Johnnie Maxie Witherspoon
Austin Cook
Maebert Cook
As you wade through this stuff, you may come to the same conclusion I did, that Jack Moriarity did
a poor job not only of interviewing but following up on clues,
....
Coupling all this with the testimony of Virginia Davis and William Scoggins it would seem Johnnie
was living at the residence occupied by Ann McRaven on Tenth.
My sheet on Susan Marie Thompson might help explain the "frantic" phone call made by Tippit from
the Top Ten record store. Susan was born June 17, 1964 which would mean she was conceived
around September 17, 1963. Therefore, questions related to Johnnie's pregnancy would have been
resolve around November 17, 1963, five days prior to the assassination. Tippit could have called her
asking if she was pregnant and when she answered in the affirmative he raced over to the house.
I also have the Tippit autopsy photographs. They are negatives in 2 1/4" X 2 1/4" format. Once I
scrape up the money to have them converted into 8 X 10 glossy prints I will forward you a set.
Dave
p.s. Harold - Don't worry about the book. I will try to pick one up locally. We you have the
opportunity sending me an index would be fine.

[John Iacoletti]

There are people who have inserted themselves into the assassination story, but were never there.

You mean like Mary Bledsoe and Jack Tatum?

Others who actually were part of the drama still managed their own self-aggrandizing additions to the story.

You mean like Howard Brennan and Nick McDonald?